After an evening trying to escape from the reaper that my work has become, I find myself watching a movie about people running from a normal existence - looking for something more.
Following the movie I sit with a drink, some good music, and fire up the computer. The monitor floods the dark room with light, and the first track bursts forth into the night. After a mouthful of beer, the instant messenger software opens like a flower, and the friends I had hoped for are not there.
This is a strange feeling. Perhaps it is that which some describe as wonderlust. The feeling that you may have so much more to give the world, and you are not doing so. The feeling that you’re trapped in an existence that you didn’t choose. The hope that somebody might notice you for a change rather than you notice others.
While staring blankly at the names on the instant messenger, it strikes me just how significant the internet has become in my life. A life where I get up each day, go straight to work, am immersed in problems of immense scope and complexity for hours on end, often return in the evening to carry on with them and then sleep. The internet, and more importantly the friends I have made through it are my escape.
The dissappointment I feel when they are not “there” is genuine. I could be sat in my favourite bar and discovered that nobody else can make it tonight - except of course the names on my list all live in different countries - different time zones.
I wonder if those closest to me realise how much good they do just by saying “hi” - how much those few words can lift a troubled and tired mind.
The small things are slowly becoming more significant to me. On the journey home from work this evening I passed a small boy precariously climbing his garden gate in perhaps an imaginary scaling of Annapurna. As I passed my eye caught the corner of his and the guilt was palpable. Suddenly I was five years old, stood in the kitchen, in the dark with my hand stuck in a pickle jar. I smiled.