Monday 22 September 2008

Still clinging to the wreckage...


Happy Birthday to Gerryantics! One year old today! It's hard to believe that a whole year has flown by since I made my tentative steps into the 'blogosphere'. It has been a fascinating experience and I have learned a great deal from it.

The discipline of writing almost every day has been an excellent one, a skill that I had not used for quite some time and like all things not used on a regular basis it has been allowed to rust and get a bit creaky... Still working on getting the damn thing oiled but I am enjoying the creativity more and more.

Writing is in many ways an exercise in self discovery and certainly the range of topics that I have explored this year has widened and deepened my own thoughts on many issues. From tomato growing to drug taking. Politics to toilets...need I say more?

What has surprised me more than anything is the passion that has been aroused by some of my comments, both my own and other peoples. For the first time in a number of years I find myself looking critically both at my own life and those of the people that surround me. I have reappraised my own views on cruising, on the meaning of life, almost on every part of the world that we live in. It is fascinating.

And so as I come to the end of a cycle so a new one begins. Ah well.... For us there are many ends and beginnings. We are extraordinarily lucky to have both lived lives that call for a constant reinvention and reskilling. As Lee Kwan Kew, the ex-president of Singapore, said in an interview on CNN yesterday, "If we don't change we become extinct." Right on Lee!

TBH has his book at the printers. I am planning a new adventure. Our children are all facing new and exciting challenges in their lives. It's an exciting time for us...

Not without risks and challenges. Both those we create ourselves and those that the world will thrust upon us. We have had a great time here in Central America, but as we slowly begin to prepare for our next move I find my brain expanding with the huge possibilities of what happens next!

So as I continue to struggle to develop my thoughts and opinions and carry on 'clinging to the wreckage' I refer you, yet again, to an article by Libby Purvis in this mornings edition of the Times. She writes a thought provoking piece comparing the spin on the current financial crisis with something she calls 'doing a Crowhurst'.

“Heading for Cape Horn, all sails flying!” they cry. “The party is united! The Olympics will come in on budget! Public services can easily cope with mass immigration! There'll be no problem paying off the PFI debts! Schools get better every day! The news from Afghanistan is heartening!”

What do you mean, it's leaking?

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