Anger - Where it gets you?

 Nowhere.  You knew that didn't you?  I've just been explaining to someone that I've got a problem with a supplier and they have had delay after delay.  I could get angry or accept that it is what it is and deal with it.  What would me getting angry actually do?  A momentary release of pent up annoyance I suppose but would it help the situation?  Probably not.  The supplier might just refuse to sort things out or walk away.  That's not what I want, I want my goods.

So get rid of your anger, think it through and approach it in a way that they will feel that they will be able to finally deliver for you.  They aren't being obviously obstructive, they are sorry that things haven't worked out as expected and so I can work with them or we go and have a fight.

It;s easier to make your point and then solicit cooperation to actually get to where you want to be.  Both parties "win" so to speak, a Win/Win situation.  Whilst it isn't ideal, it promotes good will and what do you ever get by being angry or having some sort of altercation?  You just get entrenchment and disillusionment, resentment and the like.

Getting Stuff Done

 I don't know if you have trouble getting stuff done?  I never used to but for perhaps 10 to 15 years now I have let procrastination into my life and as a Project Manager / Programme Director type it is pretty awful.

I often wonder what I am doing sitting at my PC when I could be out or doing something and breaking the social media cycle seems to have helped a bit.  Today I managed to get a number of web articles finished that I started two months ago.  All I needed was 30 minutes and the job was done.

Getting stuff done around the house is the main problem I have.  I just don't seem to get myself charged up enough to begin with but slowly it is turning around. I got stuck into repairing and stabilising my Bow Window - put in without proper Gallows Brackets that I have now installed and I've repaired most of the wood and treated it.  

There are lots of things to do and the key thing is to get started on them and then I can work through it. I'm retired no FFS so should have the time to do these things.

Anyway, as the cycle of procrastination breaks down stuff begins to get achieved and success breeds success as they say so let's see how it goes. 

Should I Go Back To Social Media

 Yes, OK, I'm doing Social Media here I know but what I meant was do I go back to Twitter (X) and Facebook?

Spoke to a friend who says they miss me not being on Facebook and all my jokes and the like.  I'm having a think about it.  I found that I got "Involved" to much and it actually affected me - especially Twitter and all the stories on there.  Neither are real reflections on life though, are they?  What do you reckon, 10% maximum I'd say are on there and I'm sure the rest are trolls and bots.

I think I'll bide my time and might test the water and limit myself to a once a week login.  

Tinnitus Update

It is strange that the Tinnitus disappeared and now is back again but it comes and goes now.  If I do the exercises I can make it vanish for a while or even days at a time and sometimes, I only notice it when I think about it, like right now as I write this.

It sounds very strange if you don't suffer from it I guess.  Overall though the volume of the high pitched screeching in my head is much lower now and so there's quite a relief that I was able to finally find something that worked, albeit intermittently.

I am hoping that I will continue to have this reduction in the sound and volume and the periods of quiet are to be treasured.  There's nothing quite like trying to get some quiet time without thought to just relax than to have the high pitched screeching in the background preventing you from doing so.  

I Don't Know, I Don't Watch It Anymore

 Apparently lots of Programmes and People (Actors/Presenters etc) are getting "called out" for wokeness in their programming and it's becoming quite prominent now for headlines to say "people" are outraged, switching off, boycotting etc.

I don't know because I gave up watching these programmes when they turned into preaching mouthpieces and spouted bollocks as truth.  Living in the country the programme Countryfile has as little to do with the country as is possible these days.  What used to be an interesting watch has now become awful from what I understand.  I gave up when every other sentence was climate change this or climate change that and it was total bollocks and no once was it substantiated.  Sure they say that some animal population decreased by x% but didn't actually give the study that was made by (I don't think you can rely on pressure groups to give you accurate figures as they too are woke and have self interest).  So you can add Spring Watch, Summer Watch, Autumn Watch and Winter Watch which are likewise presented as informative programmes but once again, misleading data is provided.   The nature programmes, your David Attenborough's and the like are interspersed with gloom and doom and so on and whilst I appreciate that habitat is under pressure, you are more interested in blaming humans than actually doing something about it.

If they spent time sorting out those problems rather than trying to work out how to dim our star or reduced the 420 parts per million yes 412/1,000,000 of CO2 then we can see someone is actually wanting to do something about it.  

My dears, electric cars and all that Heat Pump crap will not solve the problem if indeed there actually is a problem.

So I gave up watching these programmes and only choose a very few to watch now and even those are getting less as these complete idiots seem to appear forcing their opinions onto me as fact and the tail wagging the dog strikes again.

They wonder why people are switching off their TVs - I did so a long time ago and so it makes me laugh when the newspapers state that so and so has been accused of being "X" as I haven't got a clue who these people are and that's great - it kills a conversation off nicely when you hear some sort of whinge and you just say "Who?" 

I am glad I no longer watch the TV any more - it looks like it infested with people who probably have to be told which way to sit on a toilet!

Some People

 Don't react like you'd think they would.  I've done a big favour for someone and I've asked to review what happens next.  Favour was meant to last a year, it's now 16 months and I'm still doing whatever it is I'm doing.

You'd have thought that I was some sort of evil mastermind the way I got treated.  It's the wrong time, look at what I've done for you (yet I'm the one doing the favour) and so on.

It's irritating for sure and makes me question helping people out but that's what I do and I've done it before and no doubt will do it again.  I can't help but feeling that as has happened in the past, I get the kick in the teeth for being kind and helpful!  You can't win and it is just so disappointing that we cannot have a grown up conversation and deal with it, it's not as if I'm asking for the favour back!

These Things Happen

 Accidents happen, things get broken, humans make mistakes and it happens to everyone.

It's a fact of life that things go wrong, perhaps service isn't quite up to standard, things break and delays to deliveries happen.  But is there any need to get angry and annoyed and stressed out about them?

We had an incident with a meal at a restaurant where there was a dead Slug in one of our dishes.  We got the staff member to come over, don't rant and rave about it, point out the obvious issue with the food and then see what the resolution will be.  The Manager was horrified (rightly so) and took the meal away, offered a replacement free of charge and also not pay for the spoiled meal either.  Let's face it, they had one job, they failed to deliver and they sorted it out straight away.  We dealt calmly with the situation, they dealt professionally with it and they apologised and offered a speedy resolution that we were happy with.

This is exactly the way to deal with all such things and we would have got nowhere by making a big fuss in the restaurant in front of other customers and neither was that have been necessary because things like this happen despite our best efforts things do go wrong.  So why do some people explode into a rage when the smallest thing goes wrong?  Well, I'll let you read about that in 'A New Earth' by Eckhart Tolle who witnessed one such problem when he was out once.  

I imagine Chef got a bollocking for turning out a Vegetarian Dish with "protein" in it LOL.  I also imagine that they would have looked to have a process in place to resolve the issue in the future.  It was a costly mistake and can have repercussions on the reputation of the establishment.  When I paid the bill I also made sure that I went to see the manager, thanked her for resolving things quickly and gave a tip to the staff who served us - it wasn't their fault and they dealt well with a situation I doubt happens a lot.  If you are dealt with properly, it is only courteous and good manners to recognise their actions (and their obvious embarrassment) and reassure them that all is well.

I remembered "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and to my mind, not enough people stop, take a breath, count to 10 slowly and then open their mouths.  You often hear people ranting on and getting all heated and about what exactly?  What did they resolve?  Often they make themselves look ignorant, stupid, thick idiots they truly are.  

Yelling and shouting never leads to a satisfactory outcome in these cases.  Calmness and logical discussion will resolve it and when you are calm you can actually formulate good cases for problems to be resolved in your favour.  Some equipment I had has gone wrong and I was offered (because it is just out of warranty) a replacement at a discount.  The question was though, if the item I had now failed just outside of warranty, what guarantee would they provide that replacing it with an identical item would return a better outcome than what has already resulted from using identical equipment?   So now I have a different resolution by asking a quite obvious question that in the heat of the moment may have been missed by me.  I've now been offered upgraded items at a much greater discount.  I could argue about the Specification and all that but it is just out of warranty and that wouldn't get me anywhere.  

Sh1t happens as they say, all we need to do is to deal with it rationally and thoughtfully and also realise that we are dealing with a fellow human who (if it is there fault) may be embarrassed about it.  Always put yourself in their shoes and treat them how you would want to be treated.  

Make up your mind

 Tinnitus that is.   It's back, not loud but back but then I've not been well for a few days and it is possibly because of this weird head cold.   I'm pretty certain I got it like a chill as I was outside enjoying a sunny afternoon when a squall came through and dumped rain and then hail onto me and with it a bitterly cold wind for around 10 to 15 minutes and I wasn't anywhere near shelter so just had to ride it out.

Once I'd dried out, driven home and gone to bed then I really had a bad night's sleep, a dry throat requiring lots of liquid and a deep around-your-eyes sort of headache.  Getting up, I went downstairs and I slept for two days and didn't eat for almost all that time and just sweated it out with some Lemsips and plenty of water.

Just about OK now but the tinnitus has returned albeit it in the distance, nowhere near as loud as it used to be.

Note to self if going out enjoying the riverside and spring sun, remember that this is the UK and it's as likely to be four seasons in a day as it is to be fine!

Letting YOur Guard Down Unsteady Progress

 Mmm, Tinnitus came back last night and this morning and whilst I've sort of half fixed it, it isn't responding to the treatments for some reason.  It could be that I am a little uptight again today and I shouldn't need to be but things just happen like that occasionally and you've got to just work your way past them.

I find that the silliest things can throw me off course and then I have to settle myself down and reset my mind and I can move on from there.

I have a problem with stupidity, nonscientific people and lying, especially the bare-faced stuff that politicians and the media do.  I should just ignore it of course.

When people ignore data and try and ram stuff down your throat to suit their point of view, it isn't particularly a good thing.  How we can kowtow to a small minority who think that men are women and women are men is frankly bizarre.  If you watch any programme where archaeology is involved and they dig up a Skeleton guess what?  They have never said oh this is a woman's skeleton but it was actually a male!  There are huge differences and the pelvic area should give a clue.  But no, someone got all bitter and twisted yesterday because it was pointed out that they were biologically male or female, I don't recall now which it was.  SO I use the word "pretend" in place of "identify as" as it means pretty much the same thing.

And don't you find that someone who pretends to be something else, like an actor, wants me to change the way I behave, live my life and wants me to address them with their particular pronouns?  Back in my day that would get you a right lumping.  I just want all these people to leave me the f**k alone so I can get on with my life and I want the press to stop placing these 1 percenters front and centre on TV newspapers, no wonder so many of us are switching off, which I now do regularly and leave the room when the "news" is on.  It's all utter crap and the reporting is pathetic and so obviously one-sided.  Whatever happened to presenting me with facts I make up my own mind.  Now you are presented with their facts and opinions and you need to subscribe to their point of view only.

So, enough of that.  I've come here to rant and get it off my chest.  I now need to get on with something, anything really as I'm afraid today has just gone west and I've got little achieved.

The Trouble With Accounts

 Damn, I hate doing the accounts for the clubs I am Treasurer of.  It's easy enough doing the banking and all that good stuff but creating the end-of-year Accounts Balance Sheet sometimes leaves me cold.  I can never get it to balance (that's a good thing as it shows you've missed something or your calculations are incorrect) but by the time I've spent a day or two pushing around figures I'm usually number blind.

I used to do well with contract accounts and working out S curves for my projects and programmes but it doesn't work for me as my mind, whilst I understand the principles, cannot always work out what side of the equations something should be on.  

Anyway, I have enlisted assistance as I have a small anomaly and there accounting brain is better at it than I am.

The Tinnitus has returned in one ear, quietly but returned nonetheless and I need to go through the exercises again to get rid of it.  YOu really notice the difference and the ability to hear other things is amazing - I can hear birds' songs in the garden which I'd never really heard before above all the noises in my head.  

It really makes a huge difference and when I stop and listen I really can listen now.  

Hearing Progress

I am amazed that the video I posted in the previous post has turned my tinnitus around and I now only have it occasionally very faintly in my ear!  The exercises are easy enough to do and  so I perform them a couple of times a day as needed.

Interestingly I saw that one of my FB chums has now got COVID-19 for a 4th time!  Well, I noticed that last week he had a cold and over the weekend he used a test kit to turn it into Covid.  Shall I tell him that it's highly likely to be a cold and what on earth has happened to his immune system?  Generally if you get these things you have antibodies to fight them but no, nothing and after having what is it now?  With six jabs, you can still get it.  Is no one smelling a Rat yet?

I've smelt the Rat since day one and yet here we are people complaining that they've "got it again" and not questioning the efficacy of the Billions and Billions of pounds that have gone into "protecting" us all.  

Oh well, mustn't gloat, must I?  Why have so many people lost their minds?  The Government imprisoned us, took away my business and destroyed the economy and this year they are asking for us to vote them back into office.  The cognitive dissonance of our "Ruling Class" is off the scale, they have no idea of the damage they've caused because it happened to other people, the very same people whose lives they have destroyed.  Tossers!

 

Steady Progress

Well, things are improving and I am feeling so much better than I did 6 months ago.  I've been able to put the issues I had behind me (again - for it has happened several times before) and to really move on.

To top that, I found a video on YouTube yesterday that seems to have almost fixed my tinnitus which I've had for around 15 or more years now.  Here is a link 

https://youtu.be/fFccMcU-ooc?si=CVR_4P0C3aob-qtG 

I've had a high-pitched screech in my ear since I had an infection on both ears way back when I wasn't well.  This seems to have reduced the volume considerably and although I can still hear it occasionally it isn't at the front of my consciousness and affecting everything.

I am going to continue to see if I can get rid of it entirely but this temporary relief is huge and allows me to keep my mind clear.

I am pleased that the crap I was dealing with turned out to be only in my head.  By that I mean that everything that I dreaded and worried about wasn't anything to worry about.  I like the idea that right now, at this moment, I am typing this and it is the only thing I am thinking and doing.  It is liberating and so anything that does happen will happen whether I worry or dread it anyway.  If it arrives then I can deal with it.  The Power of Now if you will.

It's good to be free of emotional and constant thought battles and just to be doing whatever it is I'm doing.  It takes some work to realise if I am slipping off into the realms of thought and ego but as soon as I do it's like all these "things" just fall away from me and I'm back to being right here, right now. 

Another Funeral - End of an Era Almost

 Yesterday we said goodbye to my Auntie.  Ninety Six years old but the last 4 or 5 years were hard for her family and her in many ways as dementia took her away from them.  They did really well looking after her and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who were all close will miss her albeit she drifted away from them some time ago but she was always a kind lady with a ready smile.

I was OK until I got to the Coffin at the end and dropped a flower on the casket. I really realised it was the end of an era.  One of my uncles and my mother are still with us but it's all changed now. We went back and had a drink with my Uncle who passed away in the Covid bleeding stupid nonsense when we could only meet with a few of us and no wake!  We raised a glass and there was a photo of my Uncle holding a glass of beer so we had our last drink together.

We used to be close - 50 or 60 years ago but things move on, people move away and you see less and less of each other it's just deaths and weddings as they say.  They are nice people bt whilst we get on fine we don't really do that much socialising anymore.  Shame.

I'm reminded of my own mortality these past few weeks with my friend's funeral last week and my auntie's yesterday.

On a lighter note, I used my Sat Nav to get to the funeral and to the wake I looked at the rear of the Order of Service, dropped in the Post Code (ZipCode) and after some convoluted driving down narrow roads was informed that "You have arrived at your destination"  Only to find that it was the Funeral Directors / Undertakers shop!  I imagine that might be my Final Destination but not yet :-)

Sad Day Today

 Yes, it is sad, My Friend's funeral is today a little later.  It's sad as he was full of life and deteriorated over a year I suppose.  The last time I saw him was about a year ago I suppose.  I spoke to him but then his hearing and his sight went downhill and he was able to go for respite care in a local home but contracted Pneumonia and passed away.

It's a shame as he was full of life and laughter.  He made us all laugh and he really was a lovely person.  It was the unexpected demise which is so upsetting.  One minute we were all laughs and fun, then he wasn't particularly well and was beginning to forget things and the next thing was he was in the hospital for a long time and we didn't know then I managed a couple of calls but he wasn't his happy self he was stuck in the downstairs room with a specialised bed, losing his sight and hearing and there you go.

We will remember his happy and smiling self today.  Then it is my Aunt's funeral on Monday and whilst she lived to a ripe old age, dementia carried her off some years ago.  She was reasonably OK when I attended her husband's funeral in 2020 under the horrendous Government's stupid rules.  What utter bollocks that was and their draconian hard-nosed absurd rules did nothing for something that when looked back on proves the hubris of man thinking they can control a virus - the pratts.  

Anyway, mustn't digress from the message that it is the funeral today and next Monday and we will pay our respects and feel happy to have known them and sad that hey are no longer here.  Let us hope that they find peace on their next journey.

You Never Know When It's The Last Time You See......

 Somewhat strangely these past six months or so I've been getting random flashbacks of things I did, people I knew, places I've been to and so on.  Names sometimes fail me or if I remember them, they take me right back to events long since forgotten about.

There were some photographs online of places in London from the 70s and 80s and I recognised them as being, of that time and they feel as old to me now as say 1940s photos felt to me as a child.  The thing is that the last time I was there, these places looked completely different to now.  Of course, they will but then I realised, for example, that I hadn't been to Farringdon for about 25 years or more and places like Barbican also 30 years ago and of course, things will have changed.  It's been the blink of an eye but when I remember back it has been 30 or more years and suddenly it just seems strange to me that I never really knew when the last time I visited these places was.

So by that, it means that we never know when it's the last time, do we?  I recall driving to my parent's house and knowing that it was the last time I'd drive along that set of roads and to that particular house but when my father died I hadn't really worked out that it was the last time I would see him.  A friend of mine and I were chatting at a bar just before lockdown and again, that was the last time I saw him he was tragically taken at a young age and we had only seen each other days before.

So it is with travelling and so on.  I saw some photos of when I worked in Brussels and Paris, again, over 30 years ago now and realised that I'd probably never be there again (where I worked) I've been back to Paris and Brussels since but then I realised that was still some time ago!  

When you unlock your memories of these times and places and indeed people you worked with it presents mixed emotions.  Mixed in that I had various levels of relationships with them and they've just disappeared into nowhere.  It's strange that I have very few connections back to those days and in some cases, I just lost touch and one day I was working with them closely and then I never saw or contacted them again.  A couple of close people to me also went the same way and it disturbs me a bit that things just disappeared like that.  How could it happen?

So it was really a strange thing to remember people and places today and over the past months.  I'm not sure why this is?  Regret maybe?  Getting older and reflecting on that?  The march of time maybe?  Whatever it is, I do find that I regret that I didn't keep in touch with certain people and keep up friendships with a couple of people who really meant a lot to me.  I don't know how I dropped them but a career change 32 years ago into an almost entirely different industry probably didn't help matters and I think getting ill 17 or 18 years ago also changed the landscape.

I still have friendships from 55 years ago with my old school chums and I need to work on that as I've drifted away over the past 6 months or more.  Now I'm feeling on the up I hope that I will get back to some sort of "normality" if that is what it is.

It makes me think hard about these things as for instance, will I ever go back to Canada, Mauritius, Venice, Milan, Madrid, Paris and so on?  I enjoyed them when I was there but did I ever think as I travelled away from these places that it would be the last time I'd see them? 

Drama - Not Me

 Well, this is interesting and the news is that I've gone past the Drama in my life stuff now and returned to a quiet equilibrium.  By that, I mean I am no longer tense, stressed or anxious.  It's great, and I am back to where I was perhaps 5 or 6 years ago.

There's still "stuff" of course there is but it isn't bothering me any more.  Things will take their course and the universe will unfold at its own pace, I am sure.  What is interesting is watching other people's stress and daily dramas unfold.  There's always a story, someone who did something, who looked at me a strange way and that sort of thing.  Sure, people do the strangest things around here and I had some weird things going on but these weren't aimed at me, these were just humans being stoopid as they often are!  Things that would upset me back in the day.  At the shop someone leans right across you to get something, not following the one way in the car park, walking in front of you and stopping dead.  Car drivers not obeying the rules of the road pedestrians in our lane walking in front of the car or otherwise trying to walk behind you when reversing, that sort of stuff.

I would, not so long ago, get annoyed about it but these people who don't follow Darwinian theory are only alive because people like me stop their car in time or actually think on their behalf and don't run them over  LOL.

So rather than having multiple dramas when I'm out I just let it all happen and try not to let it bother me.  I gain nothing by getting irate and they wouldn't notice anyway.  I still rant at the pathetic politicians and so-called scientists on the TV but I try and spend as much time away from TV as possible only watching what I want to and not leaving the distraction box playing to itself.  

With this newfound freedom, I have taken to reading books again and actually reading three at once as I have to constantly cross-refer between them to work out what is going on in the main book!  It's fun but also quite a challenge to have a 20th-century book and refer to Plato at the same time :-) 

It takes a bit of practice to try and stop the anger rising and to blank out the "voice in your head" but you can do it.  I like the fact that I am now at ease with myself although I need to find useful things to do to fill the gaps left by no TV.  

Head Clearing and Time Management

 I forget that I am retired now and so occasionally I'm aimlessly thinking about what I have to do today!  That's right, not a lot really, my time is my own and after 50+ years of working it has come as a bit of a shock.  Once again, I find myself here late afternoon looking at what I have accomplished today.  Funnily enough I did something constructive this morning but otherwise, I am sat at my PC playing a couple of tedious games to pass the time.  I really ought to go do something but I cannot be bothered.

There's something very strange about this as I have plenty of things to do including catching up on my reading, sorting out some accounts and the like but I just don't feel like it and this has been a problem for a couple of years and one of the hints that something isn't quite right.  

I know this and I am coming out of the depression that I had last year but there's still something niggling away at me.  Apparently my better half tells me that I am not as bad as I was in 2020 when I was really down in the dumps - probably because I knew what Covid lockdowns would mean to my business and to the future.  Hey ho, that prediction was pretty much spot on, killed my business and a cost of living crisis and things are really beginning to look as I predicted with large chain shops closing down now and the awful service that work from home has promulgated.  Bad management of those working from home doesn't help either I  suppose.  

Anyhow, that is what it is and I am OK in myself and getting a clear almost empty head is great as I am not constantly worried about stuff or fretting about things which is great.  Back to where I was perhaps 10 years ago maybe.  Things take time and I am just going to have to work through this like I did with the other stuff.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed Shortly

Or at least, I hope it will be.  There's something strange about suddenly freeing your body and mind from all the troubles that have been causing you to be stressed especially when you realise that it is you causing your own stress. 

It is something that, unless you've felt it yourself, isn't easy to explain.  I was massively stressed before Christmas, so much so that I said to my friend who I met for breakfast, that I was stiff with all sorts of anger, stressed out and fearful all at once.  Of course, there was the idiot we were dealing with who didn't approach negotiation with anything but his own best interests at heart and other similar things. Yet, at this very moment, nothing is causing me stress.  You see he'd have to be standing next to me being an idiot or actually physically hurting me and he isn't.  At this moment I can only be present and the past and the future have no bearing on things.

Easy to type that isn't it?  The upshot is, as I'd practised before, to not let your own brain take over and overthink, overanalyse and frankly make your own life hell!  You don't need it.  The idiot will do whatever he will do next and when he does that I'll be able to respond in kind.  I can't do anything about what he will do nor will worrying or getting uptight about it do anything that will affect it.  It's coming up two months since he made his last stupid remark and so perhaps he's overthinking things?

Then there's all the other things in life that were winding me up.  They aren't important at all really.  Stupid people will do stupid things and it isn't any of my business what they do.  They might be untidy or lazy and so on but that's no reason to let my brain beat me up for that either.

It's interesting to hear the voice in my head start up some sort of memory or regret from the past and I'm getting used to stopping it dead now.  Past romances and encounters that didn't lead anywhere (but little voice says they could have) that sort of nonsense.  Nothing in the past matters because it is in the past and cannot affect you at this very moment.  Likewise, something in the future cannot affect you as it hasn't happened yet.

 Catch your mind (little voice) and stop the thoughts, think about something else in the present, the sound of the birds outside, the smell of some flowers, doing a task, give it your undivided attention and you'll find that all the noise goes away.  

Where I used to react to other people's dysfunction I can now stop myself (not all the time) and be present and not let my own ego try and sort the situation out.  It is difficult but getting rid of all the crap really clears your mind and you can then just be yourself and enjoy your life.  

I'm getting better and better at this.  Hopefully, I can get back to being a bit like my old self again  Soon.  

Yikes - Getting Old

 I was in my 50s when I got Bladder Cancer and had around 17 years until they discharged me saying I was more likely to get a new cancer than a recurrence.  

I've mentioned before how sceptical I have become about the NHS and how it is driven by suppliers I feel they treat symptoms and don't actually do anything holistic and there's this cross-over between "Government Advice" and other advice, and it's not a service anymore - it's pretty awful unless you get something done.  Anyway, that's me ranting again about it LOL.

So, getting old and my concerns over the Covid vaccine.  Here's the thing, I don't have a lot of friends but...  Let's look at my vaccinated friends for a moment.  Nearly all of them are BTW.

70-year-old, Vasculitis, treatment, survived and his 50-year-old son, heart attack, died.  His wife also passed away suddenly.  He's receiving all sorts of treatment for it.  

In his mid-50s died in his sleep.  Another, in her sleep, late 50s. Another, heart attack, died. Yet another heart attack died. Another, bleed on the brain, seizures, strokes, died.

60s stroke survived. 

Myocarditis in another ongoing treatment - seems to be OK but who knows?

Last month a friend diagnosed with 'turbo cancer' died within a month!

My close friend requires a new heart valve replacement, had an operation yesterday.

Another two have heart problems requiring restarting and some sort of laser treatment.    

Finally and ironically, the chap who poo-pooed that the jabs caused blood clots and that I was making it up.  You guessed it he's got DVT which has stopped him from flying abroad for at least three months.  

It's of course natural that people die and you kind of expect it but this is in the last 18 months and of the small close-knit group of five of us three aren't well with heart problems and DVT.  I find it either a massive coincidence or it's just getting old.  Of course, I've nothing to prove otherwise.  It just seems strange that of my close friends and acquaintances this is happening and I seem to be the only one connecting it like this, everyone else thinks its getting old! 

Straight & Narrow - I'll Let You Know

 Gosh it's been a long time getting back somewhere towards normal.  I'm not there yet unfortunately but I am quite a way along the right road now.  I am signing up to do things and going out a little more, I've plans to do some things like Quiz nights and visiting places so that's progress as I'd rather be sitting at home doing nothing.

My head is clearer for sure and emptier as I'm not constantly having to listen to the little voice in there telling me all sorts of random sh1t.

What to do next is the thing really.  I just have to keep working at keeping this clear head and trapping the ego and pain body before they start to overwhelm me again.  I know stuff is going to arrive but it's not my problem and it's not under my control so it will be what it will be and that's even more progress.  I know, for example, that the idiot is going to do something stupid but no use worrying about what that might be until he does it, can't worry about it now, in the past or in the future, I'll just deal with it when it comes.

I now need to get myself working in the now all the time and I can I think move on a bit further if I can achieve that.  It is actually far more difficult than I remember from 11 years ago when I suddenly got to a point where I was free and clear of stuff.  Of course that then led to the divorce and all that but that's OK too I think.  Again, no use in worrying about what's happened is there as, well, it's happened and there's nothing I can do about that is there? 

So getting there, bit by bit, slowly slowly catchy monkey as they say. 

Catch yourself and stop it

 Now that's interesting,  I'm beginning to catch myself (my ego/pain body) diverting attention away from what I am doing.  So far I think I've been able to catch it most times.  It's trying hard and dragging up memories from the past, some that I've only just remembered through this fight in my head.  The crazy thing is that there isn't any pattern to the daydreams and memories at all.

There's some interesting stuff that I've not remembered very well, the insides of buildings for example, I recognise some of the people and recall some of the situations but I'm realising what these are and stopping them.  What they are, are an attempt to divert me and drag me back to having all this stuff going around in my head.

What's good is the emptiness and space I feel at the moment - like things have been lifted away and long may that continue.  It's taken a while to get here and I just need to make sure I work at it and fend off my mind's attention seeking - lets see how I do?

On the up!

 Well, that is good, things are on the up and I feel much better than I did leading up to Christmas and the New Year - I'd been down for 6 or more months by then even and so it's nice to come out of the other side.  Mind you, two deaths in as many days, My Auntie who, bless her was 96 and had been suffering dementia for some years and a friend who I spoke to in December and really wasn't well who passed away overnight, he developed pneumonia and the drugs just couldn't save him.  Sad in that he was such a live wire until a year ago when he developed this illness that has eventually took his life.

Another friend in a faraway country is also down on his luck so I've sent him some money, not that I can afford, to alleviate his sufferings.  I hope that he will be able to turn things around.  Abroad is nice but no welfare system like we have to help if things go wrong.  

As for me, well I spent some time in my Eckhart Tolle books and some YouTube things he has done and I've gotten back on top of my brain!  There's no one inflicting pain on me physically and the idiot I have to deal with will always be an idiot and do stupid things and so it shouldn't anger me or cause me any pain and I know how to deal with him now as well.

I can feel my ego/pain body wanting to fight back as they lose control over me and raking up old affairs and situations is a way that they do that.  It's a matter of realising what is happening and stopping yourself from reacting.  It's not easy to do this I grant you but part of the solution is knowing what is going on and realising that your reactions are what they want to get from you.  Once you realise you can stop it and bring yourself back into the present moment, the now if you will and that pushes these things away for a while.  

I've found that leaving Social Media alone has helped and I am trying to disconnect from all social media as well as State broadcast news and so on.  Again, try to work out what the "programming" is - try counting the times that a news programme or documentary mentions, for example, Climate Change, Man-made carbon emissions, Sea Level rise, Extreme Weather, Environmental impact blah, blah, blah.  When I watch it (if at all) I can almost predict the script.  There was a programme about the London flood of 1928.  That was due to huge snowfields melting, persistent rain and a High Tide / Storm Surge.  It happened again on the 1950s and in the 2000s - they managed to get the lot in here a full house of environmental impacts caused by man, Climate change, sea level rises and extreme weather - so this happened 3 times in one hundred years.  I doubt in 1928 many of us had SUVs!   If they'd bothered to look further back into history they'd have found more floods and generally around the same time of year when we get high tides sweeping up a narrowing estuary, heavy rain and so on.  We get it every year, we live in a maritime climate - that's what happens.  

It's all very predictable, the country programmes are made by people who live in the city and not in the countryside and they have an agenda of their own, they haven't really got a clue what happens out here.  If these people had a few more brain cells they'd be stupid.

So anyway, I'm better than I was, still battling the ego (as the rant above will show you) and the problem is just that.  I need to disconnect away from all these utter bollocks that are happening out there, the crazy psychopathic headlong charge into wars, destroying our food and fuel for some crazy theory that hasn't even been proven and the data doesn't support.  It sounds harsh but I feel I should fight all of this and rage against the machine and yet in reality, I and my fellow citizens need to wake up and withdraw from it, take away these crazy people's power and focus on living ignoring all the noise and nonsense around us.

Easy for me to say and very very difficult to actually do.  I can only be alert and present in small bursts.  I was better 11 years ago when I could get out of the house and just feel at one with the world.  The catalyst then is not available now.  I need to recreate what it felt like and learn to dismiss all the crap around me.  When you get it and feel at one with the world it really makes you mind and body sing, go light, rejoice and all the day-to-day rubbish is banned for as long as it can last.  At the moment it is short, more seconds and minutes, years ago it was longer perhaps tens of minutes.  It's hard going given the way our brains are programmed but I intend to get myself there in the end.

OK That's Better

 So apart from having to pay that thieving London Mayor to drive into what is to all intents and purposes the edge of London - you know the bit surrounded by fields and the like, I survived going out to my meeting. It was probably a good thing I went as I got my 40-year citation and was asked to make a toast which actually got me up off my backside and doing something.

I have to say that I've been feeling better and a lot more relaxed about things.  Even my other half commented that the idiot giving us the grief wasn't triggering me as I suggested to her that he'll do what he wants to do and we will react to that. I know what my response will be to what I think he is going to do so that's OK.

We endured a second power cut after the recent storm, 24 hours this time, I think it was a couple of hours last time and about 24 hours the time before that.  That's the trouble of being in the country and fed by overhead wires, a tree falling or a branch crashing into the power lines will soon bring everything to a halt.

Yes, I am feeling calm and I've spent quite a while going back over my Eckhart Tolle books and YouTube videos and also just chilled a spent quiet time disengaging my brain as much as possible.  

Wasn't that impressed that someone turned up with a cold on the day as I'm only just getting over a cold that I must have caught from him at the meeting. 

Amyway, much better place, much lower stress levels and hopefully I can keep it that way!  

Let's see how today goes shall we?

 Well, I chatted to a friend and he asked me to come along for the meeting today and I said yes, then I realised that I'd have to go into the London (FFS it's nowhere near London) ULEZ zone and my car (as I live down a green lane in the country) is an AWD Diesel - it actually has low CO2 emissions and is relatively cheap to tax due to that doesn't fit in Idiot Kahn (I think that's its name) London which goes all the way out to where I used to live in the countryside!  FFS.  So I've pinched my nose and will have to cough up £12.50 for one journey into "London".  Honestly, it's a joke and daylight robbery and I can't vote the git out as I don't live in his area.  No taxation without representation and my MP can't (or won't) do anything about it!

So I digress, as you do. Off to a meeting and I haven't been for 6 or 7 months at least so it will be different and I don't think I'll get the claustrophobia attacks as I've sort of clicked out of that a bit now.  I did some serious "A New Earth" book reading and whilst I'm not back to my old self, I have certainly stopped shaking and being so stressed.  I'm not letting other stuff bother me and I see it has been 2 months since I stopped interacting with Facebook and Twitter other than birthday greetings and postings only for the club. 

I hope that it will go well, I think once I get there it will be OK and I can just go with the flow a bit and see how things progress.  I'm sure they'll be happy to see their Treasurer back and doing the finances :-)  

Wish me luck, I hope I'll get through this meeting and be able to move on a bit more once again.  I'm certainly a lot better as I do not feel any tension about going today.  

 

A Little Better

Things are a little better.  My mate gave me a call which was good of him and that's made me feel a little better.  I'm not sure if I am going to get myself up to go out next week.  I kind of hope so but I'll make a decision over the next day or two - that's standard procrastination that comes with this sort of depression.  You leave it and leave it and then corner yourself :-)

It's been a strange day today as I've not actually done anything constructive as such.  Taken the bins out and fixed my Stove Fans that I killed by having the log burner burning over 300 C!!  Oops.  Hopefully, they'll be fixed by inserting these new components.

So I still feel sick most of the time, not like I'm about to throw up but it's there just in my stomach, clear signs of stress and a reminder to me that everything is not "alright", far from it.  At least I know what it is, I can manage it, I'm in control most of the time but the flashbacks are most unusual.  These are daydreams, full colour and sound of incidents of my life.  Everything from encounters with specific business situations, girlfriends and other meetings with people who I thought I'd long ago forgotten about.  Going back to my teens and my first job and the people I met at College and so on.  It is most unexpected and also somehow, these flashbacks are tinged with regrets.  What might of happened plays out in many of them.  People lost along the journey is also a common theme.  By that I mean people I was close to in my working life and we just drifted apart and that was it, I never saw them again and it plays on my mind now but I don't know why.

Here's the thing, you cannot change anything that happened to you, nor can you worry about it or I suppose regret it. It happened, it was what it was and could be no other outcome and it's over.  You can only truly deal with now, this moment.  You cannot do anything about what might happen tomorrow nor should you worry about it either.  I'm expecting something stupid to land in my email from the narcissistic idiot.  I should not worry about it but I am.  I need to take my own medicine or eat your own dog food as it was once put to me :-) It goes back to my absolute hate of idiots and stupid people (stupid by nature or by design).  People who are incompetent, stupid, feckless and unprofessional will bring out the worst in me too.  No one needs to be ignorant or stupid but a lot are.  I'm very surprised that their brain tell them to breathe or sit the right way up on a toilet but I suppose it might be hard programmed thing and nothing to do with intellect.

I now tend to treat the majority of people as stupid unless proven otherwise.  There's a total lack of common sense these days.  Stuff on the TV is obviously bollocks and no one calls it out.  Useless statistics make huge claims about pollution, nature, climate change, and so on and people regurgitate this stuff as fact.  One of the claims was that let's say butterfly numbers are 70% lower this year.  OK, lower than what?  What number are we talking about, over what period etc etc.  This stuff is cherry-picked out.  Like the hottest temperature ever at Heathrow Airport.  Firstly, there wasn't an airport in the 18th century, it certainly wasn't surrounded by square miles of brick, concrete and tarmac and aircraft pushing out hot exhaust emissions.  So how is that representative of "The Climate"  utter bollocks once again.  

Why do rational human beings swallow all this stuff and regurgitate it parrot fashion to you?  I have no idea, these are the mask-wearing public who think that if you walk around a shop in one direction only saves you from getting a cold?  Who thinks that an IFR of .096 is frightening, who sees death as some sort of outcome of getting a cold when they are fit and healthy.    When will people see that they've been played, that they've been part of one of the worst lies in history.  

And so probably this too is playing on my mind in as much as the vast majority of people I speak to seem to have had their intellect stolen.  They no longer discuss things they take sides and argue aggressively and use ad hominem attacks to make their points.  Since when did shouting at people and calling them names secure an argument?  I had an interesting conversation with someone about climate change just before Christmas and it was a civilised discussion about facts.  I challenged their accepted thinking about CO2.  Having worked with that particular gas most of my life, I think that I can discuss its properties quite well.  I gave the example of bailing out CO2 fire suppressant that had gone off in a transformer bay.  It was bailed out by hand using buckets.  It, being heavier than air (let's call it) was trapped in the chamber and needed to be removed.  At no time did that room get any warmer.  When I asked how much CO2 was in the atmosphere, they were wrong by a factor of hundreds.  Most people think it warms the atmosphere but if it is just 415 parts per million i.e. 0.04% then how does it do that?  Everyone appears to have forgotten thermodynamics and surely water vapour is a great greenhouse gas than CO2?  Surely it must be?  Just think about other things like how much water there is on the planet.  I like the warming poles too, that makes me chuckle as it is warming twice as fast there they say.  What does that even mean????  It means nothing at all.  For it to melt, wouldn't it need to be able 0 degrees C?  In winter in the northern hemisphere, it's dark and cold the sun doesn't shine at all on it and some odd molecule of CO2 is going to heat it up and melt it?

 So where am I rambling, oh yes, of course, do some basic investigation, do some research and fact-checking and ask is that right? How would that work then? What are the figures behind the claims and so on.  No one asks these basic questions and we are lied to constantly and it once again, irritates me that people accept what they hear and see on the Radio and TV as fact without challenging it and then proceed to berate me about my lack of knowledge.  Of course, once I'm belting out the facts and challenging them, they generally go quiet or they say "You're a climate change denier!"  Always a useful addition to a conversation is that.  Bravo, you've used a phrase alluding to Holocaust denial to prove that you are right and to close down any debate.  That's annoying me too.

Blimey I didn't mean to write that lot but obviously, it was in my head so it's good to get rid of it.  Maybe I've a few more issues that I thought I had :-)

Onwards and Upwards.