Friends

I've come to the conclusion that I no longer have any really close friends. This is something I've known for a long time and it makes me pretty sad. I don't want any sympathy and I'm not garnering for any support. But, as I said, it does make me sad.

As with the vast majority of folk. I've known a lot of people through my life but I've moved through various groups quite a lot. When I was younger I played in a lot of bands and got to know people reasonably well. Some of them very well. Then I joined the army and the same thing happened.

I got out of the army, worked in full time jobs and played in a lot of bands again. I got to know more people and the same thing... I re-joined the army. Same again. I got out of the army and worked for the police. Same.

The majority of the people I've known were acquaintances of some degree or another. Not close friends. However, I did think that I had some close friends even though I rarely see them. But then I got to thinking and came to the conclusion that I've been wrong. I don't have any close friends anymore.

I don't have any friends that I can call upon when things go wrong or get bad. I have a pretty small family but they're different. They're family not friends. I'm a long standing member of a wargaming club and I know most of the 80 odd members but none of them are close. I go to church and play in the band there but none of the people there are close either.

One of the more upsetting aspects of this is that I've forgotten how to approach people. That's my fault. Over the past decade and a half, I've had the tendency to shut myself off. I believe that's due to PTSD & the resulting depression. I'm astute enough to know that I do this and that it's not in the slightest conducive to relationships. Unfortunately, it's usually after the fact that I realise that I've shut people out.

I wish I could get back to those who were my close friends. I'm getting older and I miss them. I still have contact every now and then (sometimes with years in between seeing each other). But I know  for instance: if I was to got to hospital with some sort of serious illness, no one would visit me. I know that 100%. If I really needed help, none of my friends would help me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not all alone in the world. I'm married to a lovely lady and I mix with people all the time, although I do spend a lot of time by myself. But I miss not having close friends that care. Friend that are close enough to let me know that I can care about them too.

I need to rectify this.

Alternative

I was a musician for a long time and I always liked to play original music. I've always had musical tastes that differ from most of my friends and society in general. That doesn't mean I just like weird stuff, on the contrary, I mainly like very melodic music. 

My main instrument is bass but I can play a few others too. 

For a long while now I've seen the phrase; "Alternative Music." I see or hear it often. When this phrase was first bandied about it did mean something alternative to the mainstream but it's become very dull. To me Alternative means; "The same as everything else."

It also usually means dull. When everything is Alternative then nothing is Alternative.

Having said that, I don't necessarily mean that music that is truly alternative is dull. Far from it. To my mind Captain Beefheart is alternative in that there isn't really anyone else that sounds like him (other than impostors) and he certainly isn't dull. At the same time he's not exactly easy to listen to. Syd Barrett is alternative because he just played the way he played and no one else sounded like him (again: other than impostors). There are many more examples.

What, I think, it really comes down to is that those who say they are alternative are not. Those who just create music the the way they do just because that's the way they do it; are. 

BATMAN

I wonder why Bruce Wayne never had any other relatives that could look after him when his parents were killed. No aunts or uncles. No grandparents. No close family friends. Apparently; just a butler.

So who it was that put the notion into his young mind to become a vigilante?

Imagination

I've often wondered why alien planets in sci-fi movies/TV shows only ever seem to have one type of environment. They never seem to have the multiplicity and diversity of environments that we have here on Earth.

I guess this is due to a lack of imagination on the part of writers.

I can't think of anything else to write.

I must lack imagination.

Some of My Favorite Words

Here are some of my favorite words:

Brang - As in; "I brang two bottles of wine."

Sprunt - I will sprint. She is sprinting. I sprunt.

Gove - The clown gove me a balloon.

Usposter - As in; "I'm usposter do the dishes."

Parn - As in: "I beg ya parn?"

Arks - Just ask a person who mispronounces "ask" how they manage to pronounce Mask or Task.

Dark Ages

I like history. I'm a keen amateur. Unfortunately, because of this interest, I see the world is once again repeating itself and taking several steps backward again.

Every 1500 to 2000 years, or so, the world decides that we have to enter an age of darkness. Civilization builds itself up and then tears itself down again. And it's the same pattern. Disaffection, complacency, degeneracy, terror, wanton killing & destruction, disillusionment, selfishness... All of these factors seem to herald the beginning of a Dark Age. But most telling is mass migration by a violent community.

The last dark age began about 1700 years ago followed by a several hundred years of restructure and rebuilding followed by a thousand odd years of growth. Before that another dark age happened when the Sea People destroyed the bronze age civilizations about 1500/1600 years prior to the era we call The Dark Ages. Only a much reduced Egypt remained. Form that earlier dark age Ancient Greece, Persia and finally Rome emerged and rebuilt civilization. There is evidence for earlier civilizations and it's possible that they suffered a similar fate.

The first (known) dark age began with the mass migration of the Sea People's the later by the Huns, various Goths and their ilk and ended with the Vikings in Northern Europe. All of them came with violence and destruction to gain their ends. Only the strong survive and it is civilization that is the weaker of the opposing forces. All the gains and that civilization has made are destroyed and we start over again, several thousand steps behind where we left off.

So here we are, on the cusp of a new dark age. I'm not happy about this. I'm getting too old to resist it. My soldiering days are done. I feel sad that my own culture will be destroyed and, as history shows, it tends to destroy itself from within first and, so laying the ground for what will finally destroy it.

This has happened in other parts of the world too. Civilizations have grown, prospered, advanced and then died. Something else always replaces it and whether what replaces it is better or worse is up for debate. We, with all of our technology, still can't replicate ancient structures like the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu, etc. So are we more advanced?

Anyhow, I don't believe that this blog post will survive any upheaval as we are destined to go backward once again. So I can't say: "I told you so."

Urgent Business

I was going to write something profound but I really need a poo right now.

See ya!