Moveable feast thing

Ten minutes without pausing

I know there were things I wanted to say but I have forgotten them. I
have a list of things to do. It will not leave me alone. It is a bully.
It wants me to stay busy and have no time to think or to feel guilty
that all I have done is think when action could have said so much more.
I cannot get over the feeling that I should do something heroic. I feel
like a joke and a failure and there are those who would have and need me
amd my like to be both of those things. I am writing so small so no-one
in this library will look over my shoulder and be able to recognise the
shameful waste of effort that I am, in full and public view,
engaged in. Maybe this would be a good entry for Walter, whose character
is as yet, not well known to me. I could, perhaps, begin to
learn something from attending to my not un-common bouts of self
loathing, when it comes to this un-known character to whom I have still
attributed hundreds of similarly wasted hours.

Of course, in this frame of mind – everything is wasted, whilst my
friends and those who presume to know re-assure me that 'nothing is
wasted'. Sadly, not true.

A man in a green hat is enough to move the attention away from wherever
it was and off we go on a parrallel track. One more cup of coffee for
the road.

It would be something, if not a lot, to be better at pub quizzes. A man
in his forties should not spend as much time as I do watching daytime
entertainment programmes on his television set. This is, I think, a fact. At
least, it is for me, as I get so little from it – or do I?

What I get from watching shite telly:

I get pain relief, a bare miodicum of entertainment; a diversion from
being hit (self flagellation or otherwise) over the head with my own
failings and those failings which I would (were I not such a proud and
manly manlike man, like to and take some satisfaction in blaming on the
actions of an host of other people. - did I open a bracket? - yes).

No bullshit. That's my only creeed. It is difficult not to pause when
you make that promise to yourself. There also becomes less and less to
say and your mind turns to wondering about WHO you are talking/ writing
to. Anyone who will read/listen. Yourself? God. - Probably all of the
above.

The word 'God' however (HOWEVER – no-one ever says that - its pompous)
does remind me of a subject I previously – I, earlier today was
imagining as some kind of scene from some kind of drama: It goes like
this:

Exterior Church Entrance

am man is looking at the ancient buttresses of a Cathedral when aa
Vicar passes from behind.

Vicar: You just go through there – the entrance has moved, you have to
be PROCESSED before you ebnter now.

Man: Is that the original 11th century wall there?

Vicar: Yes, It follows the footsteps of the building.

Two words in this (real) exchange interested me: Processed (especially
interesting for a man of the cloth) and 'Foot-print' – an interesting
word when used about a building like this. That a Cathedral should have
a footprint.

I imagined a further dialogue where by the man and vicar are pitched
together in some kind of an environment for a debate about the
fundraising and funding of the many historic churches in the area and
the need for them to 'adapt' in order to survive: Our Man (!) is an
athesist. He says:

I am an atheist and you are a man of the cloth. This debate cannot be
had by worrying about up-setting sensibilities. When a vast majority of
the inhabitants of these isles do not go to church and probably still a
majority do not profess to believe in God, why is it necessarry to
discuss whether church buildings should 'adapt' – before discussing
whether the ones which are no longer in use for worship should even EXIST.?
This becomes an argument about Land Use – not religion. About Social
utility in stead of 'heritage'. I may be an atheist ( although I have
doubts) and you may be a man of the cloth (I bet you have your doubts
too) – But only you have the right to have your beliefs classified as
'religious'. And so you have a bigger voice and say in what happens
over social and geographical – political matters which, by all accounts,
we might both agree – SHOULD BE EQUAL.

Dammit. No bull shit.

end