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All change.

(4 minute read.)

(Ma, take these guns offa me.)

Weary and listless, I've been drifting for too long now… rarely fully engaged with whatever I'm doing.

And with my business activity in recent years… a little bit of work, albeit much of it good quality and enjoyable, then a long pause. Too many days off in between.

I think there come times in our lives when we each know what's next, what we should be doing, and after some considerable thought my path is becoming clearer.

I'm at an age (69) when one increasingly considers one's own demise. And honestly, with less-than-ideal and deteriorating health I'm relatively certain that I've no more than five-or-so years left, and it may be as few as three.

This changes one's perspective.

I'm largely not enjoying my life, haven't been for some time, and won't use what remains of it doing what might be required to make *all* of my potential projects work… so I might just walk away from some, write-off the time and money and energy I've already put into 'em.

Sunk costs, etcetera.

This isn't because I want to party every night and sleep all day. No. Some reappraisal is sensible and beneficial to both myself and the projects.

Within a five-year-plan beginning a couple of years ago, some of my projects are for longer-term, originally intended to be progressively introduced during the next 2-3 years (although I'm now likely a year-plus behind that schedule). With the short-end of my possible three-to-five-years remaining life firmly in mind, it's unlikely I could make appropriate progress on all of them and so it'd not be wise to begin some of them.

As part of lightening my load, a shift to something less ambitious and more manageable, some have already been revised… perhaps slimmed from ongoing websites to finite books, and/or several what would have been independent projects combined within a single unified composite. Some have been discontinued, or will not be started. More sorting is required and continues.

Although already past an age at which I maybe should've retired, I'd previously decided to continue and thought I'd likely be ok to work until I was about 75, and have a few years thereafter to 'relax in the sun'.

But I've had a few reminders recently, the tap on the shoulder hurry-up wake-up call, to enjoy what remains of my time.

So yeah, it is what it is and the clock ticks on. Tock.

I find individual variation in ageing to be interesting… how some, relative to others, appear to be significantly younger and with a functional age (how they feel and function physically and mentally) lower than their chronological age.

Springsteen's 'Racing in the Street' seems apropos…

'Now some guys they just give up living, and start dying little by little, piece by piece… some guys come home from work and wash up, and go racin' in the street.'

So maybe I need to get a '69 Chevy, and 'live younger'. Yeah, perhaps. Though I suspect such a lifestyle-change won't be enough to overcome genetics and health.

Assorted self-indulgent miscellania to close…

#1 The graphic which heads this note is of course from the movie '2010', from which the 'will I dream?' scene in which Hal [the ship's computer] confronts his mortality comes to mind.

#2 The 'take these guns' mention is of course from Dylan's 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door', but with a combo of the original lyrics and the modified variant of Eric's.

(I'm sure though, [says he only half in jest], that my final destiny lies elsewhere, the hot-rail south to the land of the factor 5000 sunblock.)

#3 Springsteen's 'Racing in the Street'.

Yeah… that motor-oriented song about 'about dreams, faith and despair, love and hope; living a life'. I sold my V8 Firebird back in 80-81, when I was 24-25. Nowadays I drive a diesel Golf. Hardly 'vroom-vroom'. Oh well.

#4 The 'Tears in Rain' monologue scene from 'Blade Runner' comes to mind… in which the Roy Batty character considers 'time to die, slave no more' [laughs] and 'all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain'. Hhhmmmnnn… tough one, that.

I think in some ways we're all slaves, even those among us who've managed to self-liberate during their waking time.

Perhaps our spirits *do* fly away, as white doves. It's a nice thought.

#5 Maybe this'd be appropriate…

Tears in my eyes, I still miss 'im.

#6 And the sublime leaving song…

'Thanks to you I'm much obliged, for such a pleasant stay…', when I look back on my life I smile and then often cry (with gratitude mostly, though with a little tinge of sorrow about some of what might have been) at what it's given me and still keeps doing so. I'm soooooo fortunate to have had such a good life. Sadness, yes. Joy, too though. I've loved and been loved—can't ask for much more than that, can one.

Anyway, enough.

Added March 19 2025 by g.

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