Dìthreabhachd 220309

Quite recently I've begun watching iPlayer programmes again - as in sitting and really watching, rather than just having them on as background noise to hear the language(s) of Eden. Funnily, but perhaps inevitably, it turned out I consequently lack the time for reading books, so without meaning to stopped completely, although as usual I'm into a few. It's as if books (arguably my surest pleasure) turned into my Lenten sacrifice, and I was dedicating the time to whittling down the exorbitant to-do list related to my laptop and 'non-virtual' life.

[Added 19/3/22: Later I indeed decided to not read fiction as my Lenten sacrifice.]

Pseudo -zazen

I'm not actually practising zazen, or trying to. But I do spend a lot of time 'sitting quietly, doing nothing', letting my thoughts ramble here, there and everywhere, only trying to divert them when I notice they are getting too morbid, or notice myself beginning to wallow in self-pity.

Às-aithris: Dòmhnall Iain MacÌomhair: An Duine

 

Bu toigh leis a bhith a' dèanamh nithean anns an robh ùidh aige fhèin. An robh sin ceàrr seach nach robh ùidh aig càch annta? Cha robh esan a' smaoineachadh gun robh. 

(td 80 anns an chruinneachadh Caogad san Fhàsach)

Eadhon dar a bha mi òg, cha robh ùidh agam ann an iomadh nì anns an robh ùidh aig mo chàirdean, mo cho-aoisean: ball-coise, càraichean, caileagan agus mar sin sìos. Aig an aon àm, bha ùidh agam ann an grunnan nì anns nach robh ùidh aig cha mhòr duine sam bi eile air a bha mi eòlach: cànanan, Alba, òganaich agus mar sin air adhart. Agus cha do dh'atharraich sin rè nam bliadhnaichean.

Seadh, cha robh 's chan eil e idir furasta aig amannan. Ach a dh'aindeoin sin, cha chreid mi gum bithinn na bu thoilichte, mar eisimpleir, a' coimhead air geama ball-coise ann an telebhisean le daoine eile 's a' leigeil orm gun robh e inntinneach dhomhsa, seach a bhith ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig nam aonar. Mar a tha an seanfhacal ag ràdh, 'sòlas an dara duine, dòlas an duine eile'.

 

 

Advices and Queries - 41

"Try to live simply. A simple lifestyle freely chosen is a source of strength. Do not be persuaded into buying what you do not need or cannot afford."

There at least is one precept I've been trying to follow throughout my life, and fairly succesfully. Maybe with the exception of books, but that I'm told is common to Quakers themselves.

Terry Pratchett: Going Postal

 

There was work to do. It was dull, but it had to be done. So he did it.

(about Moist von Lipwig, p 440)

One of the few things I pride myself on is this: I'm certainly no friend of doing useless work, but when something has to be done, I'm not in the habit of shirking it or 'delegating' it to somebody else. It has to be done, so it will. Maybe that's why my flaws were often forgiven by my employers: they knew that if I get a dull but reasonable task I'll just go and do it, rather than look for excuses like far too many of the others.

Advices and Queries - 17

"Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you. Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language. Do not allow the strength of your convictions to betray you into making statements or allegations that are unfair or untrue. Think it possible that you may be mistaken."

Another area where I fail too often. Maybe I'm more likely than most to consider the idea that I may be wrong, but as long as I am convinced about my truth I can easily be outspoken to the point of being rude. Unfortunately I'm no stranger to making acerbic and snide remarks, especially when a debate becomes heated. And while I may be always attempting to be fair, I'm by no means always successful.

Advices and Queries - 13

"When prompted to speak, wait patiently to know that the leading and the time are right, but do not let a sense of your own unworthiness hold you back. [...] Beware of speaking predictably or too often, and of making additions towards the end of a meeting when it was well left before."

This sort of lists exactly the things I tend to get wrong. Either I'm so keen to have my say that I don't make time to think the matter properly through; or I overthink, and by the time I'm ready to speak the conversation has already moved elsewhere; and while I'm probably not known for speaking predictably or too often, I do find it hard to let a closed topic go for good, without attempting again and again to amend it.

Bord och stolar

Nyligen läste jag att många köpte skrivbord och/eller skrivbordsstolar när de började jobba hemifrån.

Jag förstår inte folk som lever utan skrivbord och kontorstol trots att de inte behöver. Faktiskt, det är det första jag köpte varje gång jag flyttade. (Nej, andra - efter en ny vattenkokare. Men ändå.) Skriver de där människor inte ens? Det är så mycket lättare med ett lämpligt bord och stol ...

(Okej, jag förstår inte heller dem som använder mobil när de kan använda bärbar dator. Jag är en gammal stofil.)

James Herriot: If Only They Could Talk

I loved James Herriot's books ever since I've read them (the four taking place before the war) for the first time as an adolescent - in fact, in my late teens I thought that if I could take just one book to a desert island, it would be one of these. Like in real life there was humour and there was sadness; but most of all there was kindness, and it all happened in a landscape I loved without having ever seen it.

In time, other books inevitably replaced them as my favourites, but I kept liking them a lot. Over the years I've read all the eight books, most of them more than once, the first four several times. Eventually I concluded that I liked best the very first one, describing the young vet's first year in Darrowby. So I was completely annoyed when the Kindle edition I bought turned out to miss the last chapter or postscript, making the book feel like a printed one from which some barbarian has torn off the last few pages.

But before discovering this I was enjoying once more the rest of it. Including the following quote I'd meanwhile forgotten, concerning one of the remoter farming families: "They seemed to me to be survivors from another age and their world had a timeless quality. They were never in a hurry; they rose when it was light, went to bed when they were tired, ate when they were hungry and seldom looked at a clock."

I realise this must be a bit idealised (what if there was some emergency? did they all get hungry at the same time? and so on), but that's just the nitpicker in me talking. I believe that families and communities like this did, hopefully still do, exist, and all I can do is envy them, regretting that the only times when I can temporarily live like this are those rare ones when I can safely ignore everything and everybody.

G. K. Chesterton: Alarms and Discursions

Overall I wasn't too impressed with this book, basically all the other collections of Chesterton's essays I'd read were better. Still, there are some good chapters, most notably perhaps The New House. In this one, GKC managed over just a few pages to mention the human tendency to go from one extreme to the opposite one, apply it to people escaping from overcrowded cities to places hardly inhabited at all, and conclude that, like most things in our lives, decent housing is a matter of balance between two extremes - in this case, between having your neighbours too near to and too far from you. (Personally I've always regretted that as an unbeliever I couldn't be a monk, with a cell and thus private space of my own, yet a member of a community of men.)

James Thurber: The Middle-Aged Man on the Flying Trapeze

 

Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.

(Mr Kirk in One Is a Wanderer)

Much better than the 'established' version mentioning only two and three - especially if for the best part of your life you've been one / a wanderer yourself.

 

 

 

 

Glaswegian walk

 In The Papers of Tony Veitch, William McIlvanney mentions "that Glaswegian walk, in which the shoulders don’t move separately but the whole torso is carried as one, as stiff as a shield". Now I would lie if I said I've ever noticed this during my three and a half years there. Still, the words filled me with pleasure, because I probably walk like that: throughout my life, friends would be telling me I walked "as if I swallowed a ruler" and other things to that effect.

Patrick Gale: A Place Called Winter

Most outcasts banish themselves.

(Dr Gideon Ormshaw as quoted by Little Bear / Ursula, p 187)

Much as I'd like to deny it, and whether true or not about 'most', this does apply to me. I could have remained a closet gay; I could have become a part of the gay 'community'; I could have remained primarily interested in the country of my birth; I could have done more effort to stay in the country of my heart; and so forth and so on.

Then again, I only regret about half the cases. I do regret those that were a result of my wimpiness; I don't regret those that were a result of my individualism. It's obviously best to really belong; it's a lesser evil not to belong at all, than to belong outwardly where one doesn't belong inwardly.

 

 

 

Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

"And what is there to do?"
"Continue, slowly, and wait for luck to change."

(Mr Frazer & Cayetano Ruiz inThe Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio) 

Recently I've begun pacing myself, because there's really nothing to really strive for unless and until my luck changes. If it doesn't, all that remains is to have a wee bit fun now and then while waiting for the final curtain to fall.

 

--------

The end of the day had always belonged to Nick alone and he never felt right unless he was alone at it.

(Nick Adams in Fathers and Sons) 

I'm not a loner by nature, it's more a case of having been most of my life unhappily lonely because of circumstances, but to properly unwind before turning in I do need to be for a while on my own.

 

--------

Then there were times when you had to write. Not conscience. Just peristaltic action.

(from On Writing (published subsequently to The First Forty-Nine Stories)) 

 

Usually I don't have enough time to blog nearly as much or often as I would like to, and I miss it. It doesn't matter that nobody reads this blog, it's about the pleasure of putting one's ideas down on paper or making them appear on a laptop screen, which pleasure comes regardless of whether or not anybody else will see them.

 

Alasdair Gray: Lanark

I like advice from anyone, but advice which can't be rejected doesn't deserve the name.

(Duncan Thaw to his painting teacher, Mr. Watt, p 281) 

This is why I never actually did like advice from my parents. They'd gladly advise me on anything ... and then be ostentatiously offended if I in the least diverged from what I was advised to do. It was as if advice, even unsolicited advice, wasn't something to consider, but something to unquestioningly obey, or else be guilty of gross ungratefullness.

 

--------

Q This spate of information about the fiction you enjoyed suggests a terrible lack of interest in the life around you.
A Not lack of interest but lack of anticipation.

(the author in a sort of FAQ attached to the Kindle version, p 568) 

 

This is why I've always been an avid reader: for most of my life, reading a book promised interesting and/or pleasant time in front of me, while 'real life' didn't.

Patrick Gale: The Aerodynamics of Pork

[....], never treating children as children. He laughed at, not with.

(about Huw Peake)

Obviously, I'm prejudiced about this one. It wasn't the first gay prose I've ever read, but it was the first gay 'full novel' I did, and after having read dozens of novels which in the vast majority pretended homosexuality didn't exist at all, or at best showed it as a minor character's 'quirk', it was beyond refreshing to read a novel in which most of the main characters were gays and lesbians, despite its being set in 'ordinary' surroundings (there are just a few pages happening at something you could call 'gay scene').

And yet the book reflects the fact that even as a young gay you don't spend all your time thinking about gay-related issues, however important these are for you, you have myriads of other things to think about, myriads of other aspects forming your personality and your life. The book is full of observations which could work as well in a 'straight' novel.

An example is the quotation above about one of the main character's father. This is so like my own parents, and one of the reasons why since about mid-adolescence I never again thought of them as of my 'nearest and dearest'. They were like my favourite high school teachers: people you like, but people  who seem unable to treat you without condescension, and with whom you can therefore be on polite, but not on really friendly terms.

James Robertson: The Fanatic

He felt a growing need to sum up, to explain, to record his thoughts and his memories. He was - even in his thirties - entering his middle age.

(John Lauder, p 286)

I have been keeping various diaries since high school, but as early as after college I would every now and then attempt to whittle down these records of particular periods of my life into mere summaries that would simply give the general outline and only briefly mention the most notable details.

A kind of long weekend

The longest weekend one can get without taking a day off: ending a night-shift week on Friday morning, and only returning to work for a back-shift week on Monday afternoon. Meaning one can make the Saturday a real rest day, sandwiched between two days off.

I deserved it too. The preceding day-shift week was even harder than these usually are, what with some overtime every day except the last one. In fact on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday it wasn't even worth it switching on the laptop; on Tommy's birthday I only remembered about it late in the day; and towards the end I apparently pulled my right calf (still a bit stiff even now).

While during the last, night-shift week I was training a workmate; this entailed sharing the place and often the tools, notwithstanding which we were supposed to do almost twice as much as I do on my own. Moreover on two of the nights some barbarian played there loud music for a few hours, making it almost unbearable. A rather exhausting fortnight.

But as I've mentioned, today I'm having a rest day, the rain drums on my windowsill and I'm at peace with the world ...

Tactile deprivation

In Paul Greer's novel Less the main character sadly ponders that while two gays can't walk hand in hand on a street in Morocco, two straights can't do it in Chicago. I suspect that he's right: that in general, the easier it is somewhere for two gays to openly show their love, the harder it is for two straights to show their friendship and not be perceived as latently gay. Homophobia, instead of vanishing, simply taking on a different form.

And between gays and straights ... Even my best friends, who are in every other way perfectly relaxed about my sexuality, would be wary of touching me as freely as they would another straight. For my part, the more attractive I find somebody, the more studiously I avoid touching him. And the less you can touch people you love, the more unpleasant are touches of those you don't, so you avoid that as well.

Consequently, reading about all those people who are so distressed at suddenly being unable, because of the lockdown, to hug their nearest and dearest, it's actually hard to be compassionate and not just grin and think "for fuck's sake, you only have to endure for a few weeks or months something I've been suffering from almost all my life, and in all probability will go on suffering from until I die".

Paul Greer: Less

Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world.

(p 44) 

One of the primary problems of most of my life. Too fearful not only to be achieving things, too fearful even to have leisure and fun.

--------

And yet he is somehow deflated. To travel to the other side of the world - only to be offered a brand he could so easily buy at home.

(about Less, p 201) 

One of my disappointments after arriving in Glasgow was the number of Poles. Not for some ethnic reason, but because I'd grown up near enough to Poland's border to watch its TV - if I wanted to hear more Polish, I hadn't had to move a thousand miles.

--------

He is remembering (falsely) something Robert once told him: Boredom is the only real tragedy for a writer; everything else is material. Robert never said anything of the sort. Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.

(about Less, p 203) 

I'm just a blogger, but this applies to me as well: either there's nothing much to blog about, or there's so much happening I don't have the time to blog about it while it's still fresh in my mind.

--------

Your way of going through the world, unaware of danger.  Clumsy and naive. Of course I envied you. Because I could never be that; I'd stopped being that when I was a kid.

(Carlos Pelu to Arthur Less, p 224)

What I said above, and it really was like that from my early childhood. Either my parents warned me too much against various dangers; or I took their warnings too literally and/or seriously; or indeed, both.