One of the things that makes me so much fun is that I’m a barrel of contradictions. I’m wild and crazy in a totally conservative way. I’m a young-at-heart grumpy old man. I’m a crazily optimistic pessimist – or possibly a crazily pessimistic optimist.
Today I’m going to delve a bit deeper into another of those contradictions.
2020 has not been a fun year. With bushfires and pandemics and all kinds of craziness, all over the world, this has definitely not been a year to savour.
One of the challenges of 2020 has been figuring how to get through. How do you make it to the end of the year, while retaining some level of sanity? How do you spend time productively, cultivating some kind of hope and positivity that things will improve?
As I work my way, day-by-day, through this strange and unpredictable thing called life, I’m constantly struck by the number of things I don’t understand. And then I had the most brilliant of revelations. There are heaps of things that I have no way of comprehending. And every week, I find myself struggling to figure out what to post in this blog.
There are two things in life I really enjoy. And no, being grumpy isn’t one of them (though I do enjoy that as well). I’m talking about two of my particular pleasures – travelling and writing.
I think there are a lot of similarities between the two. Both involve going on journeys. Both involve visiting places you’ve never been to before – or maybe returning to places and seeing them with different eyes. The main difference is that travelling involves going to places in the real world while writing involves going to places in your imagination.
Normally, coming up with a topic for this blog can be a bit of a challenge. Is there something new and topical I can talk about? Or do I need to go back to my regular themes of writing, music and being grumpy, and see if there’s anything I can draw out.
Well, this week I don’t have that problem at all. This week has been far too eventful for my liking. So while my stress levels have gone sky-high, it has at least provided me with something a bit novel to write about.
