The clock ticked past midnight half an hour ago. I’m not so much playing the “stay up late to avoid the arrival of tomorrow” game, as much as “trying to fit too much into today”. I’m bad at it.
Why can’t the weekend be longer?
It’s been a day. While my other half went to visit her family, I stayed home and recorded content for YouTube (I’ve written about it before - the pretend aviation escapade). After that the afternoon had somehow vanished, and I knew we had food in the kitchen to make roast dinner - so got on with it.
While roast dinner tastes great for a couple of minutes, I can’t help feeling that it’s a lot of effort for very little return. Well maybe not effort - just time. Time peeling potatoes, boiling them, chopping up vegetables and so on. It’s not even difficult - I know - I can do it.
Everybody ate all of their dinner, so I guess that’s something.
After washing up, I joined my other half in the lounge and helped her wipe her Chromebook. It’s been going slowly recently, and has never been reset - so we wondered if it might help (it did - a bit). I think the truth of it - as with most things - is that nothing lasts forever. Our laptops are perhaps three or four years old now. They could do with a refresh. I started looking at Amazon but saw the delivery estimates were Tuesday - I’m going to be in meetings all day, so won’t be able to get to the door. I’ll try and remember to take another look mid-week.
Other than that, not much has been going on in my little world recently. It’s tempting to think that everybody else leads much more exciting lives, and that I should be taking part in something, or aiming for something, or whatever else. That’s just not me though. I’m quite happy putting one foot in front of the other - quietly making progress. Avoiding as many slings and arrows as possible.
I wasn’t always this way.
Years ago - when the internet was shiny and new, and I didn’t think so much, I would talk to people all the time - striking up conversations with strangers all over the world. I think perhaps the internet - or rather, the people that populated the internet - were different then too though. Early settlers. There were little or no rules yet - no morality - no expectations or obligations. People kind of made it up as they went along.
I remember reading Felicia Day’s book about her early experiences of online gaming - about how it took over her life for several years (her book is very good, by the way). I think “the internet” was the same for me - for many - in a strange sort of way. An opportunity to be somebody else. Perhaps to actually be ourselves?
Having the freedom to re-invent yourself in a room full of strangers is pretty intoxicating.
Of course the internet slowly got ruined by the arrival of everybody. Everybody included not only the marketers, sales people and trolls, but also our friends and family. The freedom vanished - if it ever really existed at all.
Anyway.
I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a place for something to go. Maybe a thought is just that - a thought. It doesn’t have to grow into anything more.
It’s probably time to go to bed and scroll the phone for an hour.