Last night, lying in bed, listening to “Brain of Britain” on BBC Radio 4, the quote from Karl Marx, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” was used as a lead-in to finishing the lesser-known quote from Philip Guedalla - “History repeats itself …”
“Historians repeat each other!” I quipped, having once used that very quote on a test version of I web site that I designed and developed some time last century. The fact that this was the correct answer seemed only of secondary importance to the synchronous coincidence that I had perceived.
Buoyed by this minor seemingly meaningful coincidence, my interest in the programme was piqued enough to take some more active interest in the questions, readily supplying quite a considerable number of the answers.
Another coincidence was that the organisation for whom I had once worked was based just around the corner from the flat with which we were hoping to exchange, in the cultural heart of London. Much of yesterday had been spent steam-cleaning the kitchen cupboards to make the place as attractive as possible for our intended swapper. Much of today was likewise spent mopping, dusting and vacuuming bringing our domicile into its most desirable condition.
Nearly 2 hours has passed since our visitor was due, with no sign, hint or shade of suggestion of his appearance as agreed. A voicemail to check if he remained interested, had gotten lost, kidnapped or worse elicited no response. Normally, this would leave me in what could at best be described as a “blue funk”, sure and certain in the true knowledge that the Universe was playing one of its regular cruel hoaxes upon me and that the hours of cleaning and tidying had been to no avail; but no, not this time.
I had tried all kinds of magical thinking to hasten our intended swapper’s arrival - the details of which must remain a closely guarded secret as they are in truth meaningless, trivial and quite pathetic to anybody who isn’t me. Okay, to be fair, I have pretty much the same view of them; regardless of my opinions on the methods brought to bear, they did not work and as such - having really rarely worked before - should be given up.
Regardless of this - hopefully short term - disappointment, the place looks more appealing as somewhere to live; both for me at present and for any other person interested in exchanging accommodation with us in future, as well as having given me something positive to do with my time for both mine and my wife’s future endeavours.
There is a parallel here with BPD: although people may let you down and plans might not turn out as immediately expected, the time and effort put into preparing and improving one’s environment always goes some way to help one’s overall frame of mind - although occasionally reaffirming one’s low esteem of the rest of mankind and their inability to find one part of their anatomy with another - making one more ready to deal with all the slings, arrows, halberds and other bits of outrageous misfortune that is lobbed in one’s general direction and to realise that it is not necessarily “all about you” just because of something quite unrelated that one heard on the radio when dozing off the night before. The voices are not in my head; but in the little digitally enhanced box* by my bed.
Magical thinking makes dull bedfellows of us all and should most strongly be resisted, or at least be picked up by the ears and given a good shake and a stern talking-to.
All the above notwithstanding, my plans for the week ahead have now obviously to change a little and my “to do” list needs a touch of re-organisation; this, once a existence-threatening state of affairs, can now be dealt with more readily.
Back to the Resolutions updates: getting published, exhibited and out of the country have all taken a bit of a back seat today; getting richer & better seem to have made progress, making speculative approaches to IT Support companies on the basis that they must need Support Engineers as well as customers. I hold out a modicum of hope on that front, but realise that they are just a few of the strings that I have in my arsenal and should not be seen as the sole paths to salvation from poverty.
A broad-disciplined multivariate approach is called for; that which does not work must either be abandoned, modified or learnt from, rather than clung to like some piece-of-damp-fur-remnant-of-a-comfort-blanket-or-talisman, for that way lies madness, or at least disappointment. Fixed ideas are no substitute for evolution, progress and success. Hasta!
http://www.icpa4kids.org/research/articles/childhood/Rock_A_Bye_Baby.htm
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=285801
* A box which is in big trouble if it keeps up this behaviour.
